


Conversion

by Hekate1308



Series: Baggage [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 14:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12300786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: Of one thing, John had always been absolutely sure: He knew his sons. Until he didn't anymore.





	Conversion

Of one thing, John had always been absolutely sure: He knew his sons.

Dean, who would take over the garage someday and find a nice day to settle down with and give him and Mary grandkids, and Sam, who’d go off to college and do great things.

It just made sense. Dean was more a hands-on kind of guy, who’d barely read a book all the way through in his life; and Sam, always full of academia, so smart, ready to take on the world.

But then Dean graduated and left with this kid named after an angel that he thought he was _in love_ with, and that Fergus Crowley boy he abhorred, the one he thought he’d saved Dean from...

The rest of the Summer, part of him expected it all to be a big joke, that Dean would come home one day and laugh at them, happy and ready to work in the shop. But it didn’t happen. Instead, Dean returned to barely spend any time at home at all, and God only know what he got up to with the other two boys.

John tried to talk to Bobby. Surely, he would understand? He just had to learn what John know, or suspected, and then –

“So what? You got a bad feeling about Crowley? That’s it?” Bobby asked him. They were standing in his salvage yard.

“I wouldn’t have made it out of the war if I had bad instincts, Bobby”.

But his friend only rolled his eyes.

“Look, I know Crowley isn’t exactly what you picture when you think of a nice boy, but I’ve watched him and Dean grow up together – “

“They didn’t grow up together – “

“Then what would you call it if they saw each other almost every day since they were thirteen years old?”

John had no idea what to say.

“They came into the library. Karen immediately took a shine to them, and I can see why. They’re both great boys, and they’ll be good men. Just like Cas”.

Right, Cas. That was his name.

“About that” he tried to argue, “Dean clearly likes girls too”. Mary had been trying to make him call Dean bisexual, but he called bullshit on that one. He’d only ever been with girls before. “It would be a hell of a lot easier if he could just choose a girl. We’re in Lawrence, not LA.”

“You have told me a hundred times that you and marry couldn’t stand each other in the beginning. You of all people should know the heart plays tricks on us sometimes.”

“They’re so young though, and yet Dean keeps acting like they’re in for the long haul!”

“If you paid attention to them, you would know they are!”

It was the first of many discussions like this, none of them satisfactory. Bobby was usually a pretty clever guy, why couldn’t he see?

John eventually learned that Crowley spent over half his time with the Singers, as if his mother didn’t have a giant house.

Mary kept nagging at him, that he should treat Cas better and let that son of a – let Crowley into their house like it was no big thing. If only Dean would have listened to reason, but he never did. He barely even listened to John.

“Young man, we need to talk” he tried one day soon after Dean’s return from his road trip.

The boy had just walked past the living room, obviously intent on having another “date” or whatever he called it.

He stepped inside.

“Alright”.

He waited for the “sir” to follow – he had raised his sons to respect authority figures – and tried his best not to sound upset when it never came.

“Dean, you are very young. Please, just look at it from my point of view – the garage offers you everything you could want. Stability, freedom – “

“Stagnation”.

“Dean.”

His son sighed as if it was difficult to speak to his father. Boy didn’t know how good he had it. John’s own father had disappeared when he was only five years old, never to be heard off again.

“Dad. We both know this isn’t about the shop”.

He was taken aback.

“This is about Cas and Crowley.”

“I am your father. I know life”.

“You know your life. This is mine”.

“Dean – “

“No, Dad. While I lived in your house, I obeyed your rules”.

“You still live here” he pointed out, feeling helpless.

“Yes, but soon I’ll be in college. But while I’m still here... I don’t hold hands with Cas in this house, and Crowley doesn’t get in. That’s what you want, right?”

No. What he wanted was his son back.

They boy who’d been so happy and proud to help him fix the Impala, the boy who had looked forward to owning the shop, the boy who was on the wrestling team and had more friends than he could count and went on a date with a different girl every week.

A true red-blooded American boy, just like he himself had once been.

Mary wouldn’t stop complaining. Apparently they were supposed to give this whole thing a chance. And that was when John realized that yes, this was exactly what Dean’s teenage rebellion was about. Before the first semester was over, he’d come running home, tail between his legs.

But he didn’t. He called, and he and Sam talked a lot, from what John heard but other than that, they knew next to nothing as to what he was up to.

He came back for the holidays, came back with both Cas and Crowley, and there was nothing John could do about it but finally acquiesce that they all be welcome to dinner. He had to admit Crowley behaved better than he would have assumed, even if he still thought it was pretty freaking creepy how often he wore a suit.

Not that Cas’ trench coat was much better.

John just couldn’t explain how Dean had ever fallen in with them in the first place.

And then Mary visited them and had to jump on the freaking bandwagon.

He had no idea what they’d done to his wife, but she came home gushing and grinning brightly, happier than she had been since Dean had left for college.

“Dean’s so happy, John. So very happy. This is all I ever wanted for him –“ she began two days after her arrival.

“But Mary – is that even our Dean? The Dean we know?”

For the very first time, his own wife looked at him with pity in her eyes and he didn’t know why until she said, “John, this boy you’re talking off... this picture of Dean... he never existed. What we have instead is a wonderful, smart, dedicated son, who loves his friends and family and will go far in life”.

“And the shop wouldn’t have been enough?!”

She sighed.

“That’s not what I am saying, John. Please, just think about it.”

He did, but he couldn’t for the life of him understand.

Dean continued to slip out on his grasp, intent on a path John couldn’t see in front of him.

Sam, Sam he had always known to be different. It was alright that he didn’t get Sam.

But Dean? Dean was his little boy. Dean was easy. Dean liked girls and sports and cars.

Only the Dean Mary and Sam spoke to also liked books and boys and lessons, and John couldn’t reconcile the two.

One day, he caught Mary and Sam laughing at a picture on his phone, and when he came ti look, it was Dean, Cas and Crowley at the Pride Parade. He’d known it existed, of course, and he understood that these folks wanted to marry like the rest of them; but did they have to be so obvious about it?

And did his son have to wear this ridiculous flag around?

“Come off it, John. He looks... Sammy, what was the word you young people use these days again? Frangulous?”

“Fabulous, Mom” he said with an indulgent sigh. Normally John would have rebuked him, but Mary looked too enthusiastic. He couldn’t spoil her fun, or her pride in this son he no longer knew.

“Yeah, that”.

It was just another thing of the changing times. Mary had always agreed with him on the important things.

Not anymore.

Slowly, John comes to understand something else.

He sees Sam and Mary, united in their support of Dean and what John believed for so long just to be a pipe dream or a late teenage rebellion, and eh was slowly slipping away from his family in the process, stuck in the past while his family was walking towards the future.

He wasn’t very tech savvy, but he managed to figure out Google, and what he learned disgusted him. Just how many parents turned away from their children because they loved someone of the same sex?

But hadn’t he almost done the same? Was telling Dean that being with a girl would be easier just as bad? Certainly not – it was the truth. But then, those religious nut jobs who just threw their kids out on the streets like they were garbage for loving someone thought it was true that homosexuality was a sin, didn’t they?

Before their next visit, John brazed himself. Of course Dean, his – boyfriend ( _work on it_ , he told _himself, you just gotta work on it_ ) and his best friend had dinner with them the day they returned, of course; and afterwards, he cleared his throat.

“Boys... do you wanna watch the game with me? You too, Crowley”.

And they did, even though the weird guy in a suit he was still pretty sure could have turned into a serial killer all too easily kept telling them that no one knew what a good strategy was, anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's to hoping it's not too similar to the Mary one...


End file.
